Thankful journal lists faith, family, the beauty around Anne Duvall
Shawn HardyAnne Duvall of Greencastle won five of the 12 categories in the first Franklin County photo contest and second and third place overall.
But there’s more behind the camera than just an eye for good pictures.
The 48-year-old has chosen to be grateful, rely on her faith and family and concentrate on what she can do while living with the rare, degenerative upper motor neuron disease called primary lateral sclerosis.
“There is so much to see if you pause, and I have to pause,” said Duvall, who turned to the camera after having to give up her job as a labor and delivery nurse at the former Washington County Hospital in Hagerstown.
What led up to her diagnosis of PSL?
What he would feel like after running a marathon is how his wife feels getting ready in the morning, is how one doctor explained PLS to her husband, Paul. The couple will mark their 27th wedding anniversary May 25 and they have two daughters, Abigail, 22, who married Micah Snowberger in October 2022, lives in Texas and is an elementary school teacher, and Rebekah, 21, a junior at Cedarville University, who wants to be a physician assistant.
The diagnosis revealed to the couple on Valentine’s Day 2011 was a long time coming. The daughter of Carl and Kathleen Forney, Duvall developed rheumatic fever and other illnesses as a child in Brazil, where her parents were missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators. The family ultimately moved back to the United States and Greencastle because of her health.
Looking back, she had symptoms of PLS in high school and college, but she didn’t think much of it. While pregnant with second daughter, Rebekah, she felt like her legs were going to buckle and give out. By the time Rebekah was 8 months old, Duvall was falling a lot and had to crawl up the stairs at the end of the day.
Duvall chalked it up to having two kids 18 months apart and working part time, but her husband made her go to the doctor and she was referred to a neurologist. He showed her how her reflexes were abnormal and her balance was off and said she had multiple sclerosis.
“I don’t have MS, but God used this to prepare me,” said Duvall, who would experience weakness and falls for the next nine years before PLS was diagnosed.
“My life became very calculated,” she said, explaining she would only go to the grocery store in the morning or she would be too tired to drive home. She used cruise control on even secondary roads. If she was going to be working a shift at the hospital, she would plan to rest the day before and for two days afterward.
See the photos:Hundreds enjoy Greencastle Lions Club Pancake Day
In the community:From 1748 to 2023, Grace UCC has been part of community for 275 years
“I could barely walk or drive after work, my legs were so heavy and weak,” Duvall said. “I kept thinking I was out of shape. I would push my kids in a stroller. I never got in shape, but I exhausted myself.”
In 2010, she fell three times in one week and struggled to walk. Her husband insisted she quit her job.
“I only worked two nights a month, but I couldn’t work and care for my family,” said Duvall. She had been a nurse at Washington County Hospital for 13 years, one in pediatrics and the rest in labor and delivery.
She loved her job, being there at the most exciting moment of life or, if the baby was lost, being there for someone at the lowest moment of life. She also relished the challenge of caring for two patients are once, mother and baby.
In the fall of 2010, she began reading the book “Lord Change My Attitude Before It’s Too Late” by James MacDonald.
“The book really convinced me that I needed to replace a complaining attitude with a thankful attitude,” she recalled. She thought the whole family could benefit from writing five things they were grateful for daily in a thankful journal.
“Little did I know that what I initiated for my family’s benefit would ultimately benefit me the most, because I was the one who needed it the most,” said Duvall, who continues the practice every day.
They started the journals in January 2011, the same month an insurance change allowed her to go to a neurologist her family doctor had wanted her to see for a long time. He ordered tests for brain tumors, spinal cord tumors and MS. She wondered what she could possibly write in her thankful journal.
The Lord showed her it was all a matter of perspective and “I could choose to focus on the one huge negative item in my life. Or I could look around that all God has done for me and be grateful he is sovereign and controls all things, even the details of my life.”
She wrote she was grateful for a husband whose love for her had not changed although her health had changed, grateful for her daughters who taught her so much and brought joy into their home, thankful for supportive parents, for people who reached out to her in many kind ways, for the 3 inches of snow on the ground making it beautiful outside, for the ability to hear and to see.
“Once I began writing, I couldn’t stop,” she said. “I had so much to be thankful for. The list could go on and on. The funny thing is, as I was focusing on being grateful, it took my mind off the gravity of my situation.”
What is primary lateral sclerosis?
Primary lateral sclerosis is a cousin to ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. PLS progresses very slowly — her doctor likened it to watching grass grow — and is not fatal like ALS.
It is caused by the degeneration of upper motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary movement. When the proper messages aren’t delivered to the corresponding muscles, there is muscle weakness and spasms. With ALS muscles waste, but with PLS they remain intact.
Duvall said she has no muscle strength in her legs, her balance is distorted and she is unsteady. She leans on things, uses a cane as she walks and also has a wheelchair and a scooter.
The process usually begins in the legs, and travels up the spinal cord to affect arms, speech and swallowing muscles. The doctor advised, “Modern medicine has no hope for you.”
“If I lived continually hoping that medicine would cure me, I would live in continual disappointment,” Duvall said. “Instead, I live in hope of the ultimate healing when I meet Jesus. I also live in hope because God is working his perfect plan for me and that I can praise him because of that.”
How she focuses on what she can do
“I can’t control my circumstances, but I can control my attitude,” Duvall said. “God shows me so many ways to be grateful. I am thankful for the blessings I have received that I never would have if I was not sick.”
That includes photography. She would take pictures of her kids and family trips, but didn’t really did get interested in photography until she stopped working. Paul bought her a basic DSLR camera and she wanted to learn how to use it. She took a six-week photography class at Hagerstown Community College with her father, who she recalled had taken “phenomenal” pictures in Brazil for slides to show back in the U.S.
She also points out her equipment is nowhere as sophisticated and her photos are not as good or adventurous as those taken by brother, David, a pilot and photographer with Mission Aviation Fellowship in Uganda.
The original camera has worn out and today she uses a Canon 77D and keeps a lightweight Sony mirrorless in the car for scenic shots when Paul takes her for drives.
“God created so many beautiful things,” said Duvall, who creates a yearly book of her favorite photos and prints shots to make cards to send to people or give away.
She spends a great deal of time just sitting quietly in her backyard amid flowers, bird feeders and birdbaths where “the birds and butterflies and bees come to me.” There’s a chipmunk who lives in a log and has had his picture taken stopping to smell the flowers and with his cheeks stuffed with peanuts.
She loves to take pictures of sunflower fields, at Tayamentasachta environmental center and on outings with Paul, whether they are driving or he is pushing her wheelchair around town.
Stories about the world she sees along with her photos have appeared in Country magazine and its related publications, Birds & Blooms and Taste of Home. She was a volunteer field editor for Country, which she said sadly stopped publication in January.
Duvall also quilts and donates wall hangings to the Cumberland Valley Relief Center to be auctioned off at the Pennsylvania Relief Sale, a Mennonite Central Committee fundraiser to help people around the world.
“I would never have quilted if I was working,” she said. “If look at each day what I can do for someone else, my life is better.”
Faith is “part of who I am,” Duvall said, and five years she shared her story with fellow members of Cornerstone Bible Church, including Bible verses where she finds hope and which are practical for her and how she approaches each day.
Among them is “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Jesus Christ,” Thessalonians 5:16-18.
A talented musician, she plays the harp once a year for family at Christmas and piano once a month at church, although she says, “it does me in.”
What about the Franklin County photo contest?
She also was worn out from Abigail’s wedding in October and did not start looking for photos for the Franklin County contest until the day before the Dec. 30, 2022, deadline.
The contest drew more than 150 entries from 27 area photographers. The images will be used to highlight Franklin County across a variety of mediums, including the county’s website, marketing materials and the upcoming Comprehensive Plan update, Imagine Franklin 2035.
Judging included subject matter, composition of the image, exposure, color and focus. First place went to Richard Anderson of Mercersburg for his photo of a stone arch bridge reflected in the creek below, which also won the Scenic/Landscapes category.
Duvall captured second place overall with a picture of a butterfly on a sunflower she entered in the Nature category and third overall for a snow scene at Tayamentasachta in Arts, Culture, Historic Sites and Local Attractions.
In the Food category, her winner — snapped with her cell phone — was a Belgian waffle topped with strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate that Rebekah enjoyed at Brussel’s Café in Chambersburg.
For Business, she won with a picture from Greendale, a you-pick flower farm between Greencastle and Five Forks. A snowy drive with Paul generated the winning Transportation photo of the stone-arch bridge on Anderson Road outside of Mercersburg.
Shawn Hardy is a reporter with Gannett's Franklin County newspapers in south-central Pennsylvania — the Echo Pilot in Greencastle, The Record Herald in Waynesboro and the Public Opinion in Chambersburg. She has more than 35 years of journalism experience. Reach her at shardy@gannett.com